Tuite closer to leaving jail

San Diego  A San Diego Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that Richard Tuite, who was acquitted Friday of killing 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe, has served enough time on separate convictions of escaping from custody and bribing a jail deputy and could soon be set free.

Tuite, 44, remains in county jail while officials sort out questions related to the incidents stemming from his first trial and conviction in the Escondido girl’s stabbing death.

On the first day of jury selection in that 2004 trial, the mentally-ill transient slipped out of his handcuffs and walked out of court during a lunch break. He caught a bus and was found 3½ hours later in Clairemont. Months earlier, he had tried to bribe a jail guard with $24,000 for help escaping from jail. He pleaded guilty to both counts.

A jury convicted Tuite that year of manslaughter and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The escape and bribery added four years and four months to the sentence — a term that had been shortened because it was running consecutively with the manslaughter charge.

The manslaughter conviction was overturned by an appeals court in 2011, and Tuite was retried this year. A jury found him not guilty, and Judge Frederic Link encouraged state and local authorities to work quickly to free him from custody.

At a resentencing hearing Tuesday, Link ruled that Tuite’s sentence on the escape and bribery would be recalculated to the full term of seven years and eight months — time that Tuite has already served behind bars. That means he could be out of custody within days, once his paperwork is processed, according to prison officials.

By Tuesday afternoon, state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials had received the court transcript and paperwork from the morning hearing, and now have five days to amend his record and finalize his release.

The state Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted the case, and Link recommended parole for Tuite.

“I think Mr. Tuite needs some guidance, needs some help,” Link said.

It will be up to corrections officials to determine if Tuite is eligible for parole or for how long, a consideration that becomes complicated when calculating the time he’s already served. It would likely be a term of a year or so, said his attorney, Brad Patton.

If parole is required, then Tuite could be bused from county jail to Donovan state prison in Otay Mesa, where he’d be processed out, Patton said. There don’t appear to be plans to bus him back to Mule Creek State Prison in central California, where he had been serving his sentence.

No matter where he is released from, Tuite will get $200 “gate money” that is given to all inmates upon release, as well as any leftover cash from his canteen fund, said corrections spokesman Bill Sessa.

Stephanie’s family found her dead in the bedroom of her Escondido home in January 1998. Her teenage brother and two of his friends were initially accused in her death, but the charges were later dropped after the girl’s blood was found on Tuite’s clothing.